United States accreditation as a world-class education quality indicator

The scoring of the data resulted in ordinal scaled numbers for each construct. The mean of the constructs produced an ordinal number for the variables. Spearman's rank-order correlation was a non-parametric measure of association that used ordinal numbers and was used for this study.

Non-parametric measures of bivariate relationships statistically analyzed the results from the data collected. Spearman's rank-order correlation was performed on the results from the data collected from the random sample of 45 schools [Zikmund 1994]. The random sample represented the population.

Materials/Instruments

The quantitative effectiveness of the quality management system implemented was scored with a scoring guideline rubric developed by the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program [BPEP 2012]. BPEP was managed by the American Society for Quality (ASQ) through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The process scoring guideline rubric is in Appendix A. Scores from the process scoring guideline rubric reflected the business unit's overall progress and maturity in quality management. The results scoring guideline rubric is in Appendix B. Scores from the results scoring guideline rubric reflected the business unit's overall progress and maturity in student learning outcomes assessment results.

The scoring guideline rubrics meet the criteria of construct validity and content validity. The scoring guideline rubrics established content validity through agreement among professionals in the field of quality management. The scale accurately reflected what it was supposed to measure, and the content of the scales were adequate [Zikmund 1994]. The theory of quality management as studied through the BPEP provided evidence of construct validity with both scoring rubrics.

Spearman's rank correlation coefficient is a useful measure when evaluating monotonic relationships [Piggot-Irvine & Youngs 2011]. The literature review validated the application of Spearman's rank-order correlation with similar studies when researching Spearman's rank-ordered correlation with quality management and Spearman's rank-ordered correlation with student learning outcomes [Ruihley & Greenwell 2012; Wahab & Rahman 2012].

Data Collection, Processing, and Analysis

The population of 370 institutions of higher education with accredited business units was used to gather a random sample of 45 business units using an Excel random sample generator. An Excel spreadsheet documented the 370 institutions with accredited business units. The name of the second column was Random Number. In the first cell under the heading, the function =RND() was entered. The first cell was copied and pasted into the cells next to the population of 370. Then, the records were sorted by the Random Number column. This produced the random sample.

There were two statistical assumptions for this study. The first assumption was that the data from this study employed an ordinal scale which allowed statistical analysis using Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient [Zikmund 1994]. The data resulted in categories on an ordinal scale that had ordered relationships to each other, but the data did not provide any specific, measurable amount of differences [Wang & Dey 2011].

The second statistical assumption was there was a monotonic relationship between variables. A monotonic relationship exists when the value of one variable increases, the value of the other variable increased or when the value of one variable decrease while the value of the other variable decreases [Reiss 2009]. Thus, a monotonic relationship was required to use Spearman's RankOrder Correlation.

Results

SPSS statistical software computed the means of the two variables for each of the random sample 45 institutions. The correlation coefficient was subjected to test of significance at 0.01 level. Therefore, the statistical analysis determined whether the correlations were sufficiently different from chance expectations and not due to random sampling error [Zikmund 1994].

Non-parametric measures of bivariate relationships statistically analyzed the results from the data collected. SPSS statistical software was used to perform Spearman's rank-order correlation on the results from the quantitative data collected from the random sample of 45 schools. Spearman's Rank-Order Correlation test resulted in a correlation coefficient of .722. The correlation was significant at the 99 percent confidence interval, or the 0.01 significance level. The correlation coefficient of .722 showed that it was unlikely that the null hypothesis was true.

Table 1 Spearman's Rank-Ordered Correlation Results provided data that the correlation coefficient was .722. In addition, the statistical analysis provided evidence that the information was significant at the 0.01 level, or 99 percent confidence interval.

Table 1. Spearman's Rank-Order Correlation Results

Correlations

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Evaluation of findings

The quantitative analysis proved that there is a strong positive association between the implementation of quality management envisaged by ACBSP accreditation, and student learning outcome assessment results, thus suggesting a positive impact of accreditation on business education quality.

The findings are in line with the studies which prove that quality management systems had positive impacts on performance outcomes such as student learning, student retention, and graduation rates in higher education [Elmuti et al. 1996]. Researchers concluded that quality management principles and concepts were beneficial to institutions of higher education [Emiliani 2005; Imran & Mahmood 2011], thus proving their positive association with business education quality and benefits of undergoing accreditation process for the educational institutions.

The theory of why and how quality management (accreditation) worked is related to the principle of synergism. Significant synergism occurred through the linkage and integration of the application of quality management [Deming 1982]. The synergism of quality management (accreditation) enhances student learning outcome assessment processes. It works through the faculty and staff members developing, deploying, evaluating, and reporting robust processes to follow assessment standards and to maintain accreditation [Stivers & Phillips 2009].

Quality management helped faculty, staff, and administrators at institutions of higher education improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their educational processes. The association with this process of implementing quality management met the needs and demands of internal and external stakeholders to provide evidence that students were learning more effectively through the process of assessing student learning outcomes.

Recommendations

As this study has established a strong positive correlation between quality management and student learning outcome assessment (Spearman's Rank-Order correlation of .722 significant at the 0.01 level), based on the research findings, all business schools, programs, and departments may be recommended to implement quality management through the deployment of accreditation processes.

In addition to the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP), there were two other organizations in the United States that were recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) to accredit business degree programs using quality management processes. The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, International (AACSB) had 694 institutions of higher education that were accredited as of January 2021 according to their website. AACSB was no longer CHEA recognized in 2020. The International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE) had 169 institutions of higher education that were accredited as of January 2021 according to their website. quality management business education

There were 15,731 institutions of higher education that had business programs worldwide in 2021 according to AACSB's Business School Data Guidebook 2021 [Business school data guide 2021]. Between AACSB and ACBSP there were 1064 institutions of higher education that had implemented quality management through accreditation as of February 2021. That was less than seven percent worldwide. Therefore, 93% of the institutions of higher education with business programs worldwide could benefit from the results of this study.

There were approximately 1,624 institutions of higher education with business programs in the United States [Business school data guide 2021]. Between AACSB and ACBSP 788 institutions of higher education implemented quality management through accreditation as of February 2021. That was 48.5%. That means that 51% of the institutions of higher education in the United States that had business programs may be able to benefit through the application of quality management.

Conclusions

The concept, system, principles and practices of accreditation arouse in the United States out of the need to meet the government's and other stakeholders' demands for quality, and evolved along with the university system itself over decades, to form a coherent set of standards of continuous improvement in all meaningful directions of the educational institutions' life, striving for teaching excellence and high learning outcomes. At present, accreditation principles and processes, as exemplified by ACBSP programmatic accreditation, are implemented in the US and numerous countries of the world, to ensure high standard and continuous improvement of business education quality, to raise the competitiveness of educational institutions in response to the expectations of public (primarily, students and their families), governments, employers, universities/colleges, academics, and broader communities.

Grounding on the evolutionary foundation of knowledge in the field of quality management, this study established the correlation of the quality management system via ACBSP accreditation with the continuous improvement of business education quality to meet the demands of prospective employers, business units and other stakeholders. The research provided statistical evidence that the application of quality management principles enshrined in ACBSP accreditation standards at institutions of higher education with accredited business programs did result in the association with enhanced student learning outcomes.

This study fulfills the need for more information about the influence that quality management systems had on performance indicators such as student learning outcomes. At the same time, it suggests implications that 51% of the institutions of higher education with business programs in the United States, and 93% of the institutions of higher education worldwide could benefit from implementing accreditation principles and processes to maintain and enhance their education quality and competitiveness in the world business education market.

Higher education quality management results in better satisfaction of the stakeholders' expectations and higher employability of the institution's graduates. Since the quality of education is crucial for the country's economic growth and prosperity, the business education institutions and programs in Ukraine and other Eastern/Central-European and Eurasian countries may benefit immensely from implementing quality management through ACBSP accreditation for their undergraduate (bachelor), graduate (masters), and postgraduate (doctoral) programs or graduate business programs, to satisfy ever rising expectations of candidates for top managerial and leadership positions in companies, startups and organizations.

Nowadays when employers in US, Ukraine, and all countries of the world pay undiverted attention to the global credibility and reputability of accreditation of business schools/ programs, and accordingly, the real value of job candidate's business diploma, it is difficult to overestimate the value of ACBSP programmatic accreditation. It is a ticket to the higher realms of today's fast-growing and innovatively changing business world.

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Appendices

Appendix A

Process Scoring Guidelines (For Use with Categories 1-6)

Appendix B

Results Scoring Guidelines (For Use with Category 7)

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